Breaking news

Video 5:03
Trapping small mammals

Alison MiddletonUpdated
Fri 24 May 2013, 6:30 PM AEST

A mammal trapping program on Darwin's fringes educates future generations about native species.

Transcript

DANIELLE PARRY, PRESENTER: They're normally hidden from view and are becoming even harder to find. Small mammals have been in decline across northern Australia for the past decade. A team of scientists has been keeping track of the animals in a pocket of bushland owned by the CSIRO on Darwin's fringe, and they've enlisted school students to help conserve the mammals into the future. Alison Middleton reports.

ALISON MIDDLETON, REPORTER: These students are exploring their own backyard. Their school backs onto a fragment of bushland that's shaping as an animal ark just minutes from Darwin's CBD.

RUSSELL DEMPSTER, MARRARA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE HEAD OF SCIENCE: Oh it's a fantastic opportunity for them to learn about the bush and the animals that live in our Top End environment.

ALISON MIDDLETON: The children from Marrara Christian College join scientists in trapping small mammals to gain an insight into how the animals are faring on Darwin's outskirts.

SAM URLICHS, 7 YEARS OLD: I've been checking traps if there has been animals or no animals.

JACOB URLICHS, 5 YEARS OLD: I found some traps.

ALISON MIDDLETON: And what did you find in the traps?

JACOB URLICHS, 5 YEARS OLD: Some tree rats.

ALISON MIDDLETON: It's their first encounter with the threatened black-footed tree rat.

JASON ADAMS, YEAR 8 STUDENT: I think it was pretty cool watching it for the first time. We're learning about like animal cells and stuff so yeah, it's pretty cool to see them.

RUSSELL DEMPSTER, MARRARA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE HEAD OF SCIENCE: If we don't learn about them and learn about the threats and how precious and unique our animals are we might not know if they're in danger of becoming extinct and becoming lost forever and we don't want that to happen.

ALISON MIDDLETON: Scientists are trying to understand the decline in native mammal populations across northern Australia.

JENNI LOW CHOY, NT GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST: We've had mammal extinctions since European settlement so we've got a responsibility to maintain the biodiversity of our land.

ALISON MIDDLETON: These feral cats - caught on camera in Kakadu National Park - are one of the dangers being faced by small mammals across the Top End.

JENNI LOW CHOY, NT GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST: Threats such as ferals, with the cane toads and the cats and weeds as well, they're all pressures that are present in the urban environment as well in the greater bushland savannas of northern Australia.

ALISON MIDDLETON: On the fragment of Darwin bushland, scientists have been trapping small mammals for 10 years. The project is a window into the health of these precious populations.

JENNI LOW CHOY, NT GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST: We've still got a good stronghold of some species like the black-footed tree rat has been here consistently throughout the year and so have bandicoots and the possums and in the greater Territory, with larger, those animals are declining so it is a good, it is proving to be a reasonable refuge.

ALISON MIDDLETON: Today their find includes a possum. The animals are weighed, measured and micro-chipped before they're released back into the wild. A bandicoot is among the booty, as well as a native rat called a grassland melomys. While these mammals are regular finds, others have proved elusive. The threatened pale field-rat hasn't been caught for the last four years.

JENNI LOW CHOY, NT GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST: It might be the nature of the fragment - it might be so small enough that, it might be so small that it can't support those animals over time, whereas the other animals might be a bit more robust.

ALISON MIDDLETON: But surveys have found mammals in semi-urban environments, like this one, are generally doing better than their counterparts across the Top End.

JENNI LOW CHOY, NT GOVERNMENT SCIENTIST: Animals in the peri-urban area are actually not suffering such a decline as the ones in the broader landscape. There might be more fire suppression in a peri-urban environment, there might be greater presence of dogs and hence another pressure on cats so they're the questions that we're starting to look at now.

ALISON MIDDLETON: Over the last decade the trapping program has proven a valuable scientific tool. And it's taught new generations of defenders for the Top End's native species.

ABIGAIL MCKEE, YEAR 8 STUDENT: I thought it was a really good way to like see animals, like how they trap them and find out how many animals there are in the wild.

MICHAELA DEMPSTER, YEAR 12 STUDENT: We have so many animals that are special in the Top End and I think it's really important to protect the biodiversity because once it's gone, we can't get it back.